COMPASS: KEY TO FREEDOM

Robina Courtin, an Australian-born Buddhist nun with a powerhouse personality, believes she has the key to freedom for some of the toughest criminals in the land. No bars are worse than the prison of one's own mind, she argues. Drawing on Buddhist teachings she founded the Liberation Prison Project to help transform prisoners' lives so they can cope with incarceration and deal with the fundamental reasons they turned to crime. Compass follows Robina Courtin as she visits inmates at Long Bay and Junee prisons in NSW. Along the way we trace her own story and examine her philosophy.

Broadcast:
Sun 9 Sep 2007, 10:10pm

Published:
Sun 9 Sep 2007, 10:10pm

Transcript

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And thanks for joining me for an extraordinary insight into the life and work of Robina Courtin. She is an Australian-born Buddhist nun and she believes her faith can help transform people whose lives have veered way off course. She's a powerful personality and tonight we follow her to two Australian jails and along the way we chart her own transformation

Prison letter narrated

I'll never forget my first day in prison.

When the steel door slammed shut behind me, my head was spinning. All I could think was, "This tiny space can't be where I'm going to spend the next ten years of my life!" My mind just kept going, No way, no way, no way! For hours and days and months I couldn't bear the thought. I just couldn't accept it.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

You guys, you're called criminals, right. You're bad people. You're like the bottom rung of society... you know you're a rapist, you're a murderer, you're a criminal. It's a huge label....

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

What she's able to put across to people very clearly is, it is possible to transform all that.

Prison letter narrated

Buddhism has challenged me to the point where I now really do recognise that it holds the keys that will free me from the mental prison that I've put myself in. I'm the prisoner and the gaoler ...

But now I have Buddhism, it's my key to freedom.

Narr

Robina Courtin is on a spiritual journey that has taken her from a Melbourne convent school to death row in Kentucky.

This is the story of an Australian-born Buddhist nun who travels the world trying to transform the lives of people society prefers to forget.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

I don't know if any of you were here when I was last here, when was I last here? Two years ago, I think ... were you here then?

Narr ation:

Today Robina is visiting prisoners in Junee Jail in south-western New South Wales.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

As Lee said, I'm a Buddhist nun, as you can see. I'm a Buddhist nun, as you can see &amp; talking about Buddhism, so I suppose the obvious question is, What does that mean?

Narr

Robina lives in California but comes home to Australia regularly. For prisoners on death row and those in medium security jails like this one, her message is always the same.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

The thing that I constantly want to stress, because this is the thing that I'm seeing from my own benefit, from being a so-called Buddhist, that what Buddhism's dealing with is the mind, you know

Narr

Drawing on Buddhist teachings Robina focuses on the mind's capacity to achieve peace through meditation, no matter where you are.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

Buddha doesn't talk about a soul, this is one of the fundamental differences you can say, about so-called Buddhist religion, that his expertise is in the mind.

And you can say that meditation, this thing we so often mystify...

All that is, is a series of extremely practical and I could say, quite sophisticated psychological techniques to help a human being to get to know their own mind really well. And then I suppose you'd say, "Well why would you want to do this?"

Well, I think every one of us, whether we're in prison or out, if we look at our lives, we can see that by not knowing what's going on inside our minds, the words vomit out the mouth until the fist does the punch; you get into trouble in life.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

So often, when we talk to some people about our helping people in prison, people are offended. They're criminals, they deserve to suffer.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

For me there's no difference. If the victims came to me, I would be working in exactly the same way. My job, It's not a political thing. It's not because I favour people in prison. It just grew, you know. I ran with the ball.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

The real skill is to on the one side okay I did do this but it's not at the core of my being. And as long as you think it is then you might as well give up trying to change. Because if you every day reinforce your view, 'I am bad', that action defines me, then you'll never change you know.

But if on the other hand you take responsibility and then say okay how can I change, how can I develop the other parts of myself? I think that's the key to success.

Narr

A Mexican teenager started it all. Eleven years ago he wrote to Robina from inside a Californian jail.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

He was 18. He was in this top security prison full time in his cell, 23 hours. He'd been in prison since he was 12.

So you know, from our point of view, absolutely no freedom, from the ordinary conventional POV zero freedom, you couldn't wish for worse.

He wrote and I sent a book and we developed a relationship. He became a Buddhist. And I think within a year, there were 40 people I was writing too, all just word of mouth. And so it's grown from there.

Narr

Robina began meeting with prisoners inside and she soon founded the "Liberation Prison Project" - a spiritual lifeline for inmates.

Today it offers Buddhist books, tapes and teachings, and writes to prisoners in jails across America, Europe and Australia.

Q &amp; A Football &amp; Buddhism

(Junee prisoner asks Question)

Prisoner

What are these steps that you should take to achieve enlightenment or being a follower of this Buddhist course?

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

I understand. Well ok let me put the question back to you. Let's say I'm talking here about football and you'd never heard of football, let's say. So how would you answer that question? What would you have to do now to become good at, become like - who is the best footballer - Barry Hall if you're a Swans barracker. But you guys are probably Rugby or something.

You answer the question now. I'm saying how can I become a footballer. What would you say?

Prisoner

Study the game obviously, the rules of the game and practice the fundamental skills that are involved.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

And find really good coaches and find other people who are really good at football. Hang around them as much as possible. And keep at it, and have confidence, and know you can do it. Exactly, that's the answer.

Narr

Answers are what Robina Courtin spent most of her earlier, at times troubled life, searching for.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

I was born in Melbourne, December 1944. The second of 7 children. Catholic family, and kind of a crazy chaotic family. We were sort of quite poor. My mother was a musician. My father was a bit of a journalist. And my mother sent us to a Catholic convent.

Narr

From an early age Robina was closest to her older sister Jan.

Jan Courtin- Robina's Sister

I was a year ahead I think, might have been two years ahead at one stage and we were both at boarding school at the same time.

She loved being at boarding school. I hated being at boarding school, but she loved it because it allowed her to go get up early, go into the church on her own, just pray and do whatever she felt was the appropriate thing as a Catholic young girl.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

From the time I can remember, little girl, loved God. Loved Our Lady. Loved the Saints. Yearned to be like them, always, I wanted to be a priest - but I think I was so little that I didn't understand intellectually the reason why I couldn't be. So I figured, alright, I'll be a nun, you know. And I was 12, I was on my knees, begging my mother to let me be a nun like St Therese of Lisieux, my little hero. She became a nun when she was 14

Jan Courtin- Robina's Sister

Robina was full-on, really wanting to achieve everything that she believed in... she was just very determined and really wanted her own way.

Narr

By the early 1960s Robina's conservative upbringing would prove no match for her restless energy.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

By the time I was almost 19, I think I made a very conscious decision to say goodbye God and hello boys, you know. I didn't have much guilt. I liked my Catholic upbringing, but it was a very new phase for me.

NARR

Robina studied classical singing and fell in love. But soon left it all and moved to London with her sister. The first of many turning points.

Jan Courtin- Robina's Sister

We started to become political in Left politics, politics to do with the Black Panthers, Black American movement. And then we became feminists, we became radical feminists and we were known as the Two Sisters. We were literally the sisters and we used to run all sorts of things for the radical feminists. And went on demonstrations and all the things that one did in the '70s.

Jan Courtin- Robina's Sister

Going to London, it just opened up the whole range of issues, and we felt very strongly, specifically about the Soledad Brothers, which is an American group of prisoners. We actually started up with another colleague a movement to try and help people to become aware of their plight, and they were in prison. So it's sort of interesting that now Robina is working with prisoners. She's done the whole circle.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

If I look back in my life, I wanted the truth. I wanted to question. I wanted to analyse. I wanted to rip things to pieces and understand things. And that's what led me to various political phases. I wanted a world view. But I'd find contradictions. I'd find things that didn't work. And then I kept moving

Narr

Robina moved to New York, studied karate, and then came back to Australia where an accident literally changed the course of her life.

Jan Courtin- Robina's Sister

She'd helped a woman push a car, So this car ran over her foot. She was laid up. She had to sit still, which is very difficult for Robina And someone had suggested that she go to a great place up in Queensland to rest, and there was a meditation centre there and so Robina went.

Narr

In a rainforest just north of Brisbane is The Chenrezig Institute.

Founded in 1974 it's one of the oldest Tibetan Buddhist centres in the western world. Here Robina found what she'd been looking for.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

The part that totally appealed from day one was that Buddha would demand that we don't believe a single word he says. Buddha would demand that it's up to me to make it my own experience. And to think about the meaning of life which is exactly what I wanted. But the part that also was marvellous, there was the devotional aspect and I had plenty of that as a kid. That suited me. The human heart part. But also the, just the wish to be happy, and there was somehow not a contradiction between these. And I found they all came together in Buddhism. And so far that's how I still feel.

A year later she travelled to Nepal and at the Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, began her ordination.

She took her final vows in northern India.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

It was the logical next step for me. And what it represents for me is this capacity to really involve my life in thinking about these things and analysing and progressing with it. Not just, you know, gazing at my navel. Not in a self-centred way. For me the Buddhist one gives me the clear kind of ability to understand myself, so I can be of benefit to others. Be useful in the world.

Narr

So working in prisons has become a natural extension of her philosophy. Through Buddhism prisoners can find freedom - in the mind at least.

(Talking to prisoners)

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

Do you want to do it for just 3 minutes, a 3 minute meditation? And it's nothing kind of holy. Some Christians think you open up yourself to the Devil if you meditate - If you think like that you don't need to do it. But all you're doing is sitting with yourself for thee minutes, OK. So I'll show you how to do it.

Basically we're trying to do - you've got this busy head okay - like a room full of a hundred people, all chatting away and you're dying to hear what everybody is saying, and you're racing about. We spend our whole day like this. So we're not going to ask them all to go away. Let all the people shout and yell, it doesn't matter. So let all the thoughts come and go, it doesn't matter. So what you're going to do now is you focus all your awareness strongly on the sensation at your nostrils as you breathe in and out. You just feel that. Just one more breath and you'll feel it, okay. That sensation.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

We're done. Ready for lunch?

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

So our contact details are on there. And it's full of stories of other practitioners in prisons across the world

Narr

These visits are a starting point, but the heart of the Liberation Prison Project's work lies in the personal letters it sends and receives.

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

While it's an amazing opportunity to have a visiting monk or nun come in, the continuity is quite difficult because often prisoners will be moved on. So it's a really good first contact and then once they have our contact details they can maintain contact through writing.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

How many letters are we getting for prisoners these days?

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

We're getting on average between 35 to 50.

Narr

In Australia the Liberation Prison Project has about twenty Buddhist teachers writing to prisoners in jails across the country.

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

Our first letters can often come from a place of great despair. And I mean for example one inmate wrote to us he'd actually attempted suicide and it hadn't worked. So afterwards another inmate approached him and gave him a book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he read through that and just cried and cried and cried, then wrote to us.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

The huge number of people have no one and nothing. No one and nothing.

The work we're doing, this personal communication through letters, it's the most precious thing because sometimes we're the only person in someone's life.

Prison letter narrated

It's 2.30am and I'm wide awake once again, doing battle with my mind and I can't find any peace. I've been coming to jail since 1991. Everything's a mess and I realise that I can't go on coping the way I have done in the past,

that's why I've turned to Buddhism, because of the psychological benefits that I see in it.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

So if a person's full of low self esteem and deep depression and wants to kill themselves, having one person who they receive a letter from, oh my goodness, it's the difference between life and death, you know.

The job of the correspondence teacher, or even the visiting teacher, is to guide them skilfully according to their needs.

This is really crucial, because it's that one on one contact. These people have no one. So I've seen for example, if we go into prison, and I go to teach a group. And then I return six months later or three months later, there would be no one the same. They've all been moved to another prison. You know, with our 250 volunteer teachers, and we're growing all the time, correspondence teachers around the world, that one person can move prisons ten times in a couple of years. So he has a constant. He has this one person. So that person becomes like their spiritual friend. That person guides them.

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

It's working on transforming the mind. So it's giving them the tools, providing them with methods to actually look at every single situation that's arising in their mind and to use that as their meditation. It's not that you have to go off to some holy place and put your hands together and feel good. You're actually dealing with really messy stuff. And if that means you're being locked in your cell, that's what you deal with. But that's your practice, that's what you work with. That's why you transform.

Narr

This week long Buddhist retreat in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney is testimony to Buddhism's growing appeal. Today Robina is giving these devotees new names for the next phase of their spiritual journeys.

(Robina talking to older woman who's weeping)

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

You OK? Thubten Jampa,The name of the Maitreya, the future Buddha, the Buddha of love, so Jamp is Tibetan for love. Thank you, Leslie.

Narr

These events also provide an opportunity for Robina to introduce her prison work to the wider community.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

Wherever I go, normally if I'm India or Nepal or in Israel, wherever I go, what I like to do is buy about 400 postcards and then the group we've got, we all sign and send them to our prisoners. And I can't describe, certainly the ones in the US, they've never been outside their own suburb, and to get a postcard from a foreign country is more exciting than getting hundreds of letters, it's just so moving. I was amazed, so I do it wherever we go, so we've got about 400 postcards here, I've bought the postcards; we've got the list of prisoners, we've got a bunch in the States and a bunch here, take 5 or 10; if you can't afford the postage, you give the cards signed &amp; written back to Aileen, you with me &amp; then pop them in the mail - would you like to be a part of that? OK,

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

That last postcard session too that we sent out, I got a response from a fellow called Raven Jones.

He was so moved by getting this postcard from Australia that he drew this beautiful calligraphy with my name, and it was all these little Buddhas and little flowers and all sorts of things - have you seen that? It must've taken him hours. And then recently he found out I was Irish, so he sent me an updated one and it's got all these shamrocks in it, so gorgeous.

So you're going to write an individual message for each one?

Woman

yeah!

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

Well done

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

It's the human contact that makes all the difference. If you're in prison, you're already the scum of the earth. You have nobody, no one to turn to. And very often you've never heard one good word about yourself in your ears, in your life.

So we've often found, we will write a small note when we send our first book, and we'll say 'Dear Fred, we're happy to hear from you. Let me know what I can do for you.' They write and say they burst into tears. They couldn't believe a person who has never met them, is being kind.

Prison letter narrated

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your letter, the feeling of your acceptance fills me with overwhelming emotion as it's difficult to find acceptance within myself. Other people's acceptance of me has usually come at a price. Once they know of my crimes their perception changes and they move away in disgust, although there are some who don't, and they are rare.

Narr

Next stop for Robina on her Australian visit is Long Bay, the maximum-security jail in Sydney. Her guide today is a former inmate who now works on the front line with prisoners.

Prison social worker

It's probably with great pleasure that I actually introduce you to Ven. Robina Courtin, who is a Buddhist nun, obviously and she's, she currently works in the States and works with guys that are on Death Row at San Quentin and other prisons within the United States, and she's the director of the Liberation Prison Project.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

I want to sing a little tiny prayer first in Tibetan. But like I say don't get all holy just because I say the word prayer, because very much the approach in Buddhism is that thoughts really do count.

And so you can say that really prayers in Buddhism are like aspirations, sort of positive statements. So this little prayer that I'm going to sing is really just expressing an altruistic motivation, a reason for us all being here together for this little period of time here

Narr

The men in this group are among some of the country's toughest criminals and we aren't allowed to show their faces. Many have been dealing with drug and alcohol addictions. They've come to hear Robina today by choice.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

These things I think, you can call it Buddhism. I mean Buddha didn't invent this stuff. He just kind of ran with it, you know. Because this is the substance of Buddhist practice, knowing your own mind you know, being your own therapist. And recognising that we have got the power to change ourselves regardless of how lousy life is. And this is the tough part, but every one of you know what I'm talking about. Every one of you knows. Every one of us knows this you know. And it's the tough one, because we're so full of hurt and blame and we had had lousy lives and people have badly treated us, and things have gone wrong. You have got to be so courageous you know to say okay it's true. Meanwhile what can I do with it, what can I do about it, you know.

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

She's dealing with a lot of people who've got incredibly berserk, crazy, wild energy and they've acted on that energy, and that's what's gotten them into prison. So what she's able to put across to people very clearly is it is possible to transform all of that. And she's a very grounded, practical, living example of that.

Prisoner

How long did it take for you to get out of confusion of searching your own mind?

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

For me, I'm a bit of a maniac okay and I'm a bit sort of determined to do what I want -so luckily everyone has got their own life, I wanted pleasure. I was into sex, drugs and jazz definite. But as soon as I got too kind of miserable I was off, you couldn't see me for the dust you know. I couldn't stand the misery. I never wanted husbands. I never wanted houses. I never wanted possessions, I never wanted children, that's my style. But in a way that's been the saving thing to me, because I have always wanted to pursue. I mean, it sounds noble, but to pursue the truth. For god's sake. But I sort of mean this you know. And to really try and fight, have my freedom.

The problem I think, nothing wrong with having a wife and two kids and a picket fence, go for it. But once you get it and then you start the jealousy and the anger and the pain and the blaming you just sit in a sewer all your life. Do you understand my point here? And this is what's so scary. You're pursuing this ideal happiness but then she turns out sitting with your best friend. You go crazy you want to kill her, you're back in here again.

So we've got to have the courage. Is what I am saying whatever it is you've got to have the courage to know..

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

All Buddha is saying, you know it's not rocket science, all he's saying is, when you work on your mind, and you take responsibility for your anger and your jealousy and lessen it, which is a brand new concept to us - guess what? As I said, you're going to feel better. You'll feel more clam and relaxed and peaceful and kind to others and more forgiving. My goodness, it's all we want, you know. It's all we want.

Prisoner

Are you very peaceful within yourself?

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project:

Well I mean all I can say is, so far so good you know. And if what you are doing for 30 years isn't working you're pretty stupid to keep doing it, aren't you? 10 19 Bashing your head against a brick wall, you're kind of dumb you know, which is what we do unfortunately. You understand my point?

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

The people who are in prison, if they do have an interest in something like Buddhism, it's a very fierce interest. Very intense interest. I know that a big thing I'm finding talking to a group of prisoners, it can be more, questions, really more intense, because they want to put all their minds into it.

Narr

These prisoners are close to their release dates and are preparing for life on the outside. For some this can be a bigger challenge than being in jail. Almost half will fail and end up back in prison within two years.

Prison letter narrated

Thank you for your words of encouragement. Your friendship and support mean everything to me as I've found peace within myself that's never been there before, and it's been because of the compassion that I feel when I read your letters. I'm in prison for now, but not forever, Now it only looks like I'm in prison.

Aileen Barry- Co-ordinator Liberation Prison Project, Australia

Buddhism gives them the tools also to recognise that coming back out into the world is difficult, is challenging. But as long as they have got the inner resources to actually face that then they're fine. They're able to meet what, the challenges that they face.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

People have got out of prison, have given it up. Well it's not confined to people in prison, you know. It's inevitable. It's a very hard thing to continue to discipline your behaviour, and your mind. But also lots of good examples of people who have really succeeded.

Prison letter narrated

I try not to think about when I get out, it certainly will be challenging to go from being told how and when to do everything, 3 square meals a day and a set routine to being self-sufficient and independent.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

Thank you very much.

Robina Courtin- Liberation Prison Project

My main wish always is to communicate with human hearts and from... at the end of it for them to walk out with the thought that I've got some human qualities, and I can change, and I'm not defined by my negativity. That's my main wish.

Prison letter narrated

Buddhism is teaching me to look at everything that occurs in my life with a different view than I am accustomed to. I am the creator of all my own suffering as well as my own happiness.

I am so relieved that Buddhism is part of my life. Buddhism has given me dignity, courage and honour.